Still working on the &#*@ hall!

Well, warm weather has arrived and I’m STILL working on painting/redecorating the hall. It’s my own fault. I ripped up the carpet on the stairs, expecting to paint the trim around the stairs and replace the carpet. When I saw the lovely oak under the carpet, I realized I didn’t have the heart to re-carpet. I hate carpet anyway. Reid seems to love it, but he lets me have my way in most things concerning the house. He did, however, insist on some sort of non-slip thing put on the stairs — so we’ll have a runner. I spent the day stripping the stairs with varnish remover and steel wool, and now my wrist is killing me from all the scrubbing! Now I’ve got to figure out how to urethane the stairs and still be able to use them! (I think I’ll do them after the kids have gone to bed and leave every third step un-urethaned so that Reid and I can get to bed. That way, they’ll be dry by morning.)

Not that I expect many people to be reading this, but be warned: you will no doubt find many of these logs really boring. They’re here for my own purposes, and for close friends and relatives who care enough to put up with me! I had intended to start the log in September when I started my sabbatical, but every day was too busy doing things to the house while the kids were at school. I had hoped to log everything I was working on so that I might use it as a reference.

Now that I think back, I can’t believe how much I got done. I think it’s due to the cotico-steroids I’ve been on since last September. I’ve had boundless energy while I’ve been on steroids. I have to take them because I have ulcerative colitis, a particularly icky disease. I fully expected this episode to go away after a few months, but it seems to be quite stubborn and has lasted (with 2 very brief respites) for more than 9 months! I’ll write all about it one of these days.